Moore brings 21 years as Worcester city solicitor to bid for city manager

Thursday

Sep 4, 2014 at 10:06 PM

By Nick Kotsopoulos TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

EDITOR'S NOTE: One in a series of stories profiling the finalists for Worcester city manager.

WORCESTER — The two years that David M. Moore spent as a disc jockey back in the 1970s at a 1,000-watt AM radio station in Bad Axe, Michigan, do not show up on his resume.

That's because he does not feel it has much relevance to his eventually becoming a lawyer, being Worcester's city solicitor for the past 21 years, or becoming one of the three finalists for the city manager's job.

But in a way, his time at WLEW, where Mr. Moore spun the stacks of wax and played farm, commodity and weather reports, ended up putting the Michigan native on a road to Worcester.

"It's not something that I found very relevant to becoming a lawyer and it seems like three lifetimes ago," he said of his DJ years. "But it did get me to think about going back to college and then move on to law school."

The rest, as they say, is history.

After graduating from Boston College Law School, Mr. Moore got a job as Worcester's first parking administrator in 1982 when he was hired by then City Manager Francis J. McGrath.

Three years later, he moved to the city's Law Department where he was an assistant city solicitor for eight years, and he was named the city's chief lawyer in 1993 by then City Manager William J Mulford.

He is believed to be one of the longest, if not the longest, tenured city solicitors that Worcester has had. He has served in that position for four city managers, which is more than anyone else.

Overall, Mr. Moore, 60, has been with the city for more than 32 years and is now seeking to take on a new challenge as its city manager.

"You can do a lot as a city solicitor, but you don't leave a footprint in the sand," he said. "As city manager, you can help people and move a city forward. It far exceeds anything a city lawyer can do and it gives you an opportunity to leave footprints in the sand.

"That's why I jumped at the chance to take my career to the next level," he added. "I want to continue moving this city forward. I've lived here since 1982, have spent my professional life here and my children were born and raised here. Following Ed (Augustus) is a great opportunity; he's set some great standards and we need to continue in that path."

Former City Manager Michael V. O'Brien, who spent 10 years at City Hall with Mr. Moore, said he firmly believes he has the makings to be an excellent chief executive. He described Mr. Moore as a great listener, an expert in municipal, state and federal law, and someone who is very knowledgeable of city operations and initiatives.

"His loyalties are to the city, its citizens and good government," Mr. O'Brien said. "He knows the role of city manager, the good, the bad and the ugly. As city solicitor and in the city manager's cabinet, more often than not he was in the thick of it, at ground zero, for all the planning, challenges crises and creative solutions."

But Nicole Apostola of Worcester, who closely follows the goings-on at City Hall and writes about it on her blog, said she feels that the city, with Mr. Moore as city solicitor, has been on the wrong side of many lawsuits and has drafted many unfair ordinances.

She said much of his high-profile legal work has been "to indulge the whims of certain department heads" or those of the City Council, as in the case of the panhandling and pit bull ordinances.

"There have been plenty of times when Mr. Moore could have told the City Council that a lawsuit was a bad idea or that an ordinance could lead to a lawsuit that we could not win, and he has not," Ms. Apostola said. "Perhaps as city manager he could become a voice of reason to sometimes unreasonable elected officials, but his track record does not make me confident about that."

Originally from Roseville, a suburb of Detroit, Mr. Moore is of Polish and Slovak descent. His father was a millwright and his mother a registered nurse. He dropped out of college after his first year at Wayne State University and took a job at a Kroger supermarket.

While working an overnight shift re-stocking shelves, he heard radio commercials for a broadcasting school playing over the store's loudspeaker and decided to check it out.

Mr. Moore went to broadcasting school and ended up at WLEW-AM in Bad Axe, which is located in what is known as the "Thumb of Michigan," a rural peninsula north of Detroit and east of Flint.

"Our station's motto was our newsroom has its finger on the pulse of the Thumb," he said. "When I got the job I was getting up at 4 in the morning to sign the station on at 5:28. It was a rural station so we played a lot of farm, commodity and weather reports."

While at WLEW, President Richard M. Nixon was in the throes of the Watergate scandal. Mr. Moore recalled that Mr. Nixon appointed a congressman from that region to be a federal judge, forcing a special election to fill his seat.

"It was viewed as Nixon's first test to see whether Watergate was going to hurt Republicans at the polls," he said. "Nixon actually came out to campaign. They made me stay at the station to manage the sound board while all the senior reporters followed him around, but that and Watergate itself inspired me to be a lawyer and go to law school. I also thought I should go back to college since Tom Brokaw already was lined up for the nightly news."

Mr. Moore quit the radio business and went to Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, where he graduated in 1978.

He was the first member of his family to graduate from college. He then headed east to Boston College Law School and graduated in 1981. He said he became interested in Worcester because his wife at that time was working at a law firm in the city.

It just so happened that the city adopted local legislation at that time allowing it to take over parking tickets from the courts. So, it was looking for someone with a law degree to be its parking administrator, who would be responsible for holding hearings on appealed tickets.

Mr. Moore ended up getting the job, set up the new Parking Office, brought the Denver boot to Worcester and ran the office for two years. As someone with a law degree, he jumped at the opportunity to work in the city's Law Department when an opening for an assistant city solicitor's job came up in 1985.

Then when City Solicitor Gary S. Brackett left City Hall in 1993 to start his own law firm, Mr. Mulford made him acting city solicitor.

During his tenure as city solicitor, Mr. Moore has been a major player in all sorts of things, whether it be negotiating complex deals for economic development projects, drafting contracts and ordinances and preparing special legislation on behalf of the city.

"Because I've been involved in so many things, I know the issues, know the players, what developers are seeking and the tools the city has to assist them," he said. "I've also been able to build relationships with so many key people. With all these relationships in place, there is no reason to miss a beat going forward."

Timothy P. Murray, president and chief executive of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, is familiar with Mr. Moore's work as a city solicitor in his roles as a city councilor, mayor, lieutenant governor and now at the chamber.

While the chamber has not taken any formal position on any of the city manager candidates, Mr. Murray said he has personally found Mr. Moore to be a "very competent and capable" city solicitor.

"He's taken on a variety of tough tasks and complex economic development issues," he said. "His next challenge is to see if he can convince the City Council that he can take it to the next level."

Mr. Moore had been mentioned as a front-runner for the city manager's job when Mr. O'Brien stepped down in January. But when the council bypassed him and went with Edward M. Augustus Jr., he said he was not disappointed.

"Ed Augustus is such a remarkable man," he said. "He has such a likability factor that you want to work for him, and you want to do well. He's got a very calm demeanor; he's a great listener, and that's a skill a lot of people don't have. Very quickly I saw and understood why (the council) made that decision."

As for his interview with the City Council Thursday evening, Mr. Moore said he doesn't feel any additional pressure being the local candidate among the three finalists.

"It comes down to how you feel Worcester has done the past several years," he said. "If you think Worcester is making great progress and doing great things, then you put someone who knows Worcester from the inside and who can continue it. If you think Worcester isn't doing great things and its wheels are falling off, then you need to bring someone in from the outside.

"My whole focus in this has been putting my best foot forward," he added. "I can't worry about the others. You just have to look at yourself, put your best foot forward and see what happens."

Mr. Moore's interview is scheduled to take place from 5 to 6:15 p.m. Sept. 11. The council is expected to select the city manager later that night.

Contact Nick Kotsopoulos at nicholas.kotsopoulos@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @NCKotsopoulos